Tela
surname · Latin script
Meaning: One of the ambassadors sent by Devānampiyatissa to Asoka (M.L.302)
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/tiːlə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Tela is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country.
- CMCameroon≈1 in 14K(inferred from the name graph)
- NGNigeria≈1 in 17K
- CHSwitzerland1 in 71K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 33 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 14K (inferred from the name graph)
≈13,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Cameroon, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
One of the ambassadors sent by Devānampiyatissa to Asoka (M.L.302).
Sources 1
- Dictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Tela counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NG Nigeria | ≈13,000 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | Tela | 10 |
| CM Cameroon | ≈2,000 est. | ≈1 in 14K | 1 | — | 1 |
| PH Philippines | ≈450 est. | ≈1 in 241K | — | Tela | 2 |
| KE Kenya | ≈330 est. | ≈1 in 161K | — | Tela | 6 |
| US United States | 280 | 1 in 1.2M | 649 | Tela | 30 |
| CH Switzerland | 118 | 1 in 71K | 118 | — | 3 |
| FI Finland | 61 | 1 in 91K | 61 | — | 1 |
| NO Norway | 56 | 1 in 98K | 56 | — | 1 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Assemblee Nationale du Cameroun — sitting-MP roster, 10eme legislature (2020-2025). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Tela is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Spanish, cloth, fabric (woven material made of fibers)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, A thin, web-like structure or membrane.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In lua, to call one’s name behind one’s back, take name in vain, talk about one, swear, blaspheme. This word is generally followed by dina (name).
as a wordGrammar and Dictionary of the Buluba-Lulua Language
In Portuguese, screen, painting canvas
as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of Portuguese
In Hawaiian, Niʻihau form of kēlā (“that”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Robert TelaPGPapua New Guinean rugby league footballer and coach
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 32 sources across 17 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 344 | #62,792 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 280 | #69,996 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 179 | #94,676 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 118 | #9,701 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 61 | #19,248 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 56 | #24,341 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Tela mean, and where does it come from?
- One of the ambassadors sent by Devānampiyatissa to Asoka (M.L.302). Recorded by Dictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh).
- How do you pronounce Tela?
- A machine transcription gives /tiːlə/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- In which country does Tela have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 13 thousand people named Tela in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled tela.
- How common is the name Tela?
- In the United States, the national register counted 280 people named Tela in 2010, about 1 in 1.2 million residents.
What do you want to know about Tela?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/telaThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Tela”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.